A rare opportunity to see some of the great gardens around Venice, with expert
guides including our own gardening agony aunt

What better way to distract myself from the soggy tragedy that is my January garden than to write about a very special tour I will be hosting from September 4-9 in association with Boxwood Tours, to the Gardens of Venice and the Veneto?

This will be a six-day adventure, for which I did a speedy but fascinating reconnoitre a couple of months ago with our brilliant and knowledgeable guide, Helena Attlee. We will start the tour by discovering and savouring, from our conveniently situated (yet mercifully just “off Broadway”) base at the Hotel Giorgione, some of the mostly hidden horticultural delights behind this gorgeously theatrical city. I, for one, and I am sure many others who have already visited Venice, barely knew they existed. Jenny Condie, long-term resident, font of information and author of The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto, will join us for dinner on our first evening.

The Villa Barbarigo, Padua, built around 1700

The next day, via a combination of boats and walking, we will visit gardens of great diversity, from the Palazzo Soranzo Cappello, which has an almost rural atmosphere, and the little Palazzo Gradenigo next door, to the tranquil, starkly modern garden enclosed behind the Palazzo Querini Stampalia, designed by Carlo Scarpa in the Sixties. There is also the more formal – such as the lovely rosy Palazzo Malipiero Barnabò right on the Grand Canal itself, where the owner Contessa Barnabò invites us to enjoy an evening aperitif.

I need hardly say that Venice isn’t all water, and repeat that there will be a considerable amount of walking involved in this trip. However, we will leave Venice, after a visit to the Bauer Palladio Hotel garden on the Giudecca, via private boat that then takes us across the Lagoon and glides us gently up the Brenta Canal, built by the wealthy Venetian merchants as an escape route from the sweltering summer heat to take them to their elaborate agricultural villas. The most magnificent of these is Villa Pisani, a substantial palace “with all the trimmings” – a maze, a citrus collection, grand vistas, vast water and statuary – grand enough, indeed, to have been commandeered by Napoleon himself.

The Giardino Giusti, near Verona, is one of Italy's most famous gardens

From the Villa Pisani, onwards to Padua: the Hotel Majestic Toscanelli will be our base, in the midst of a maze of another kind – tiny streets, with a market square and little shops to die for – with some time allowed for their enjoyment. A visit to the Botanic Gardens, the oldest in Europe, will be sure to intrigue plant-lovers. It now has a new and ultra-stylish glass-steel-and-water addition, dramatic against the ancient Paduan backdrop. This will be followed by a trip out to the exquisitely beautiful Villa Barbarigo, with its elaborate water gate, tiered pools and innumerable statutes as well as, you guessed it, another maze.

Stone-edged beds at the Botanic Gardens in Padua

In Verona, Helena Attlee assures me (I did not have time to see them on my flying visit in November), all the gardens are equally superb: we will visit the Giardino Giusti with its 16th-century grotto, the Villa Rizzardi Pojega and the Villa Arvedi with a famous broderie parterre. On the last day, heading back towards Venice, we visit the Villa Emo, a magnificent palazzo with a garden still deeply in touch with its agricultural past. Farewell drinks and lunch, hosted by the charming, hands-on gardener Contessa Marina Emo overlooking her garden and wonderful surrounding countryside, will be a lovely end to this exhilarating tour. I am looking forward to it, and to meeting my fellow travellers.

The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto, September 4-9, 2014, costs £2,989pp (with £300 single supplement levied by hotels; less £113 for package without flights). The price includes two nights’ b&b at Hotel Giorgione (four-star) and three nights’ b&b at Hotel Majestic Toscanelli (four-star); four lunches and three evening meals with wine, return flights from London Gatwick to Venice and all transport during tour. Boxwood Tours (01341 241717; boxwoodtours.com)